Protesters across the US have taken to the streets in the wake of George Floyd’s death to demand an end to police brutality and what they see as systemic racism.
In response, Democrats have proposed legislation to address inequities and reduce deaths in custody, including measures that would require police to wear body cameras, ban chokeholds and make it easier to prosecute officers.
Here’s a look at some of these proposed solutions, and other potential ways to reform policing.
1. Rewrite “use of force” policies
Most police departments have a “use of force” policy which dictates how and when officers can use force. These policies vary substantially from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. For example, the type of “neck restraint” or chokehold that Officer Derek Chauvin used on George Floyd has been banned in New York City since 1993.
After high-profile police killings, many departments are forced to re-examine and rewrite their use of force policies by federal consent decrees. The city of Baltimore revamped its policy in 2019 as a part of its consent decree with the US Department of Justice after the death of Freddie Gray. The new version requires officers to report use of force incidents and compels them to intervene if they see another officer improperly using force.
After Floyd’s death, the Minneapolis city council forced the police department’s hand by banning chokeholds and making it mandatory for officers to intervene if their colleagues are using improper force.
Advocates acknowledge that simply rewriting these policies would not effectively prevent deaths like Floyd’s, and that force is still disproportionately used against communities of colour. A New York Times analysis showed that the Minneapolis police use force against black residents seven times more often than white residents.
2. Defund the police
Protesters believe that cities and states spend far too much money on their police departments without sufficiently funding education, mental health, housing and other community-based social services. A growing demand is for political leaders to “defund” the police – that usually means reducing funding not cutting it altogether.
These calls have been heeded by the mayor of Los Angeles, who slashed $150m from a proposed budget increase for his city’s police. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio also pledged to divert money from the NYPD towards social services, though he did not cite a figure.
In Minneapolis, a group called the Black Visions Collective is asking the city council to pledge not to increase the police department’s budget, and to divert $45m of the force’s current budget to shore up the city’s coffers in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Now is the time to invest in a safe, liberated future for our city,” the group wrote. “We can’t afford to keep funding MPD’s attacks on Black lives.”
3. Dismantle the police
On Sunday, a veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council signed a pledge in front of a crowd of demonstrators promising to “begin the process of ending the Minneapolis Police Department”. They vowed to create a “new, transformative model for cultivating safety”. Earlier in the week, two council members used the word “dismantle” to describe their plans for the department, as did Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar.
The statement did not make it clear if the council is merely pledging to remake the department, or if they were heeding some demonstrators’ calls to “abolish the police,” which would obviously be the most radical course of action. The council president said she could imagine a scenario where the department enters state receivership, and a team of medics and health care professionals respond to 911 calls instead of police.
A group called MPD 150 is calling for a “police-free future” in Minneapolis, in which mental health professionals, social workers, religious leaders and other community-based advocates would do the work of police.
There is some historical precedent for a wholesale dismantling of a department. In 2012, the Camden, New Jersey, police department was fully disbanded and all of its officers lost their jobs. However, it was certainly not abolition – a new, countywide police force was formed in its place, and about 100 former Camden officers applied for and regained their jobs. The move actually put more police on the streets of Camden. The new department adopted a very strict use of force policy and made it easier for the city to fire rogue officers.
The department has reported a steep decline in homicide and use of force complaints since.
4. Demilitarise
Since the 1990s, the military has transferred over $5bn-worth of equipment, ranging from sleeping bags to ammunition and armoured vehicles, to local police departments through a special acquisitions programme with the US Department of Defense.
As a result, many advocates for police reform argue that police today function more like domestic soldiers, using techniques and equipment designed for battle, than community peacekeepers trying to keep people safe, and that this approach costs lives.
President Barack Obama put limits on how police could use the programme in 2015, but most of those were overturned by the Trump administration a few years later.
Not only have police acquired more weapons over the past two decades, but many are taught military-style tactics. This so-called “warrior training” often spins a narrative where police are heroes fending off danger at every turn, who must learn how to protect themselves at all costs – even if that means killing civilians.
Critics say it teaches cops to be afraid, and to shoot first, think later.
In 2019, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey banned cops from attending “warrior-style” training, even on their own time with their own money. But the local police union called the ban “illegal” and continued to offer the training.
There is research to show that militarisation leads to police violence. In 2017, a study published in Research and Politics found that the more military weapons police have, the more likely they are to use them.
5. Sue the police
Citizens who try to sue the police in civil court for excessive force frequently see their cases thrown out because of a legal doctrine known as “qualified immunity”. It was designed by the Supreme Court to protect government employees from frivolous lawsuits and give police legal breathing room surrounding their split-second decisions.
In order for a case to move forward, the court directs that it must ask two questions: first, was excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment used? And if so, is there a “clearly established” prior court ruling on the behaviour that would mean the officer knew his or her conduct was illegal?
Freddie Gray’s death in 2015 sparked protests and led to some reforms in the Baltimore Police DepartmentThis second question is where advocates say courts give officers a free pass, throwing out cases if there has been no previous, precedent-setting case with an almost identical set of facts. A Reuters analysis found that more than half of excessive force cases in the US get thrown out on “qualified immunity” grounds.
A portion of the sweeping Justice in Policing Act introduced this week by House and Senate Democrats would eliminate qualified immunity for police. Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas have both said they believe the doctrine needs to be revisited. There are currently eight qualified immunity cases before the country’s highest court.
6. Police the police
Sometimes, police violence against black people is attributed to a “bad apple” – an angry and racist cop who overreacts in the line of duty.
In an effort to keep them out, some forces have fired police officers who publicly admit to racist ideas. Last July, the Philadelphia Police Department fired 13 officers who posted racist, violent messages on social media – but only after an advocacy group brought the messages to light
Eric Garner’s mother speaks outside of George Floyd’s visitationBut the reality is a bit more complicated than just one bad apple ruining the bunch.
Police work in what social researchers call a “closed system” where there is little external oversight and loyalty is highly prized. If one officer crosses the line, others will back him or her up. Without a video of the incident, it often comes down to just the word of an alleged “criminal” and a respected police officer.
That’s why many are pushing for police to be required to wear body cameras, to record police interactions. They were adopted in New York a few years ago after the death of Eric Garner, and Congress is proposing making them mandatory nationally.
But there is little evidence that shows they reduce violence, according to a recent analysis of 70 studies looking at their efficacy.
Campaign Zero, the non-profit behind the #8cantwait hashtag pushing for police reforms, says they have limited use. While footage of police brutality has played a vital role in exposing the problem, most of it was filmed by citizens, not police. Body cameras can easily be turned off, and the footage is more likely to be used by prosecutors against civilians during criminal trials, than as a means of proving police brutality.
7. Start counting
There is no doubt that Black Americans are more likely to be killed by police and subjected to other forms of police violence. But what’s still unclear is exactly how many victims there are, or which departments are the worst offenders.
In 2014, Obama signed into law the Death in Custody Reporting Act to force police departments to report every time a citizen dies in custody. The law also required the data to be turned over to the attorney general, who would have to release a report on ways to reduce deaths every two years.
Four years later, the Department of Justice’s inspector general said the department still had no mechanism to collect data from the states and didn’t expect to have one until 2020.
Meanwhile, the FBI has launched the National Use-of-Force Data Collection project, to track not only people killed by police but every time a police officer uses force. They began collecting this data in 2019, but local law enforcement agencies are not required to participate and the information has yet to be made public.
In this vacuum, non-governmental organisations and journalists have had to fill in the gaps. In 2015, The Washington Post began to log every fatal shooting by an on-duty police officer in the US. Since then, they have recorded more than 5,000 people killed by police, using a mixture of news reports, social media and police reports. Their data, which is often used by policy researchers, shows that black people were almost 2.5 times more likely to be killed than white people.
Dozens of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes in central and south Gaza as Red Sea tensions rise.
Here’s how things stand on Monday, January 15, 2024:
Latest updates and human impact
- Israeli attacks continue unabated overnight killing and wounding dozens of civilians in central and southern Gaza. At least 22 people were killed and a large number injured as a result of Israeli forces targeting al-Thalatheni Street in the central Gaza Strip.
- Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an antiship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, which was shot down by a US fighter jet, announced US Central Command (CENTCOM) on X.
- This was the first US-acknowledged Houthi attack since the US strikes on Yemen on Friday.
- Hamas released a 37-second video showing three Israeli captives held in Gaza on Sunday, saying they would reveal the fate of the captives on Monday and urging the Israeli government to stop the offensive.
- The Israeli military says it has shifted to a new phase of the war focused on the southern end of Gaza, where almost 2 million internally displaced Palestinians are running out of safe spaces to shelter.
- The Gaza Ministry of Health has said almost 24,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive. More than 60,000 people have been wounded in 100 days of war.
Diplomacy
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
- The White House said on Sunday that “it’s the right time” for Israel to scale back its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
- Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) said in a statement on Sunday that one of the biggest obstacles to the timely delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza was Israeli inspection of the aid. The statement came after Israel blamed Cairo for the delay in aid delivery to Gaza during its defence at the ICJ.
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X on Monday, calling for the release of the remaining captives held in Gaza on the 100th day since they were taken by Hamas. He did not mention the Palestinian casualties.
- Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who described herself as a “friend of Israel” to the press, will travel to Jordan, Israel, the occupied Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates this week, her office said on Monday.
West Bank raids and violence
- Israeli forces arrested 25 students staging a sit-in in protest against high tuition fees at An-Najah University in Nablus. Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reported that the protesting students received a text message from Israeli forces telling them to “surrender now”.
- Israeli forces have reportedly raided the family home of Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, in the village of Kobar, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
- The Israeli army said on Friday that it killed three Palestinian men who infiltrated a West Bank settlement and fired upon soldiers.
- The Israeli military killed two Palestinians after accusing them of ramming their car through a checkpoint near Hebron.
- Local sources reported that Israeli forces bulldozed two Palestinian-owned houses during a Sunday midnight raid in the city of Qalqilya, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
- Armed Israeli settlers broke into the village of Burin, south of Nablus, and attacked Palestinian residents’ houses and properties after midnight on Sunday, Wafa reported.
- “Violent raids and arrests have become part of the fabric of daily life in the occupied West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said. At least 347 Palestinians have been killed and thousands have been arrested since October 7.
Flames and smoke billow during Israeli attacks against Gaza on October 9, 2023
Human Rights Watch terms Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s call for a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza a ‘war crime’.
The Hamas movement has threatened to kill an Israeli hostage every time Israel bombs a Palestinian home without warning as Israel mobilised some 300,000 reservists and imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, denying the enclave’s millions of residents access to food, water and fuel.
The warning from Hamas came on Monday as the death toll from the armed group’s surprise weekend attack climbed to 900 in Israel and revenge attacks by Israeli forces on the besieged Gaza Strip killed more than 700 people and left some 3,700 others wounded.
Residential apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and a mosque have been among the sites attacked by Israeli fighter jets, artillery and drones, according to media reports and witnesses.
Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida issued the threat to kill Israelis from the dozens held captive by the armed group. He said an Israeli hostage would be killed for every Israeli bombing of a civilian house without warning.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said more than 100 people were taken captive by Hamas during the deadly cross-border incursion over the weekend.
As Israeli forces conducted intense retaliatory attacks on Gaza on Monday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant drew international condemnation by announcing a total blockade of the densely populated and besieged enclave, which is home to 2.3 million people.
Gallant said Israel would impose a “complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.”
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply distressed” by the siege announcement and warned that Gaza’s already dire humanitarian situation will now “only deteriorate exponentially”.
Guterres also said some 137,000 people were taking shelter with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at schools across Gaza.
UNRWA said on Tuesday that almost 190,000 people have been displaced in Gaza amid the Israeli attacks and the figure is expected to grow further as the violence intensifies.
Nearly half a million people have also not received food rations this week in Gaza as UN food distribution centres have been forced to remain closed amid the Israeli onslaught, UNRWA said.
Human Rights Watch said Israel’s total blockade on the necessities of life for everyday people in Gaza was a war crime.
“Defense Minister Gallant’s statements are abhorrent,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
“Depriving the population in an occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as is using starvation as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court should take note of this call to commit a war crime,” he said.
Abhorrent. This is a call to commit a war crime by @yoavgallant. The @IntlCrimCourt should take note.
Quote by @OmarSShakir ⤵️ https://t.co/kKVo6YtpI1 pic.twitter.com/neHQMwnXVn
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) October 9, 2023
Shakir also condemned the threat by Hamas to kill hostages, warning that such action was also a war crime.
“All hostages should be safely released to their families,” he said.
Grotesque. These threatened acts would amount to flagrant war crimes by Hamas’ armed wing. The @IntlCrimCourt will be watching.
Quote from @OmarSShakir ⤵️ https://t.co/FuNtvHe0YG pic.twitter.com/6cnHODLWyZ
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) October 9, 2023
On the diplomatic front, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Hamas and Israel to immediately end violence and protect civilians, the Egyptian presidency said.
Erdogan urged Israel against “indiscriminately” attacking civilians and delivered measured criticism of Hamas, urging both sides to respect the “ethics” of war.
The United Kingdom, French, German, Italian and US governments issued a joint statement on Monday recognising the “legitimate aspirations” of the Palestinian people and supporting equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
But the prospect that fighting could spread also alarmed the region and the world.
Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in response to at least three of its members being killed in Israeli shelling of Lebanon.
Israel said one of its deputy commanders was also killed in an earlier cross-border raid from Lebanon.
US President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, the US, September 20, 2023
Social media users, including journalists and observers, are calling out what they call a ‘double standard’.
After Saturday’s surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to the social media platform X to offer “condolences go out to everyone who lost relatives or close ones in the terrorist attack”.
He also stated, “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable.”
Many world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shared similar sentiments.
The world is seeing appalling images.
Thousands of rockets raining down on Israeli cities. Hamas terrorists killing not only Israeli soldiers, but civilians on the streets and in their homes.
It’s unconscionable. Israel has a right to defend itself – full stop.
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 7, 2023
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated, “Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel.”
Accusations of Western ‘double standards’
Some social media users have criticised these statements, saying they highlight a double standard.
The world is seeing appalling images.
Thousands of rockets raining down on Israeli cities. Hamas terrorists killing not only Israeli soldiers, but civilians on the streets and in their homes.
It’s unconscionable. Israel has a right to defend itself – full stop.
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 7, 2023
Ukraine’s right to defend itself is praised by most international leaders while Russia’s invasion is condemned, but commentators said the same cannot be said about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
Aaron Bastani, a leftist British journalist, said on X that there’s a “clear double standard in endorsing terrorism against civilian targets in Ukraine … and condemning it by Palestinians”.
Many users said Western diplomats and media support the Ukrainians who defend their land, but label the Palestinians fighting against Israel as “terrorists”.
https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1710787817415082349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710787817415082349%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine
An illustration of a woman’s face, in which one eye is closed beside a Palestinian flag, and one eye open beside a Ukrainian flag, has been regularly shared as a symbol of the West’s alleged double standards in how the two conflicts are viewed.
https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1710994682883273172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710994682883273172%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine
Clips also emerged on social media from a CNN interview with Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, in which he posed the rhetorical question, “Why does the United States support Ukraine in fighting occupation – while here they support the occupier, who continues to occupy us?”
The hypocrisy and double standards of western governments and media platforms dealing with situations in Ukraine-Russia and Palestine-Israel blow the mind. Absolute disgrace.
— Said Yacoubi (@AlyacoubiSaid) October 8, 2023
It is not the first time Western nations have been accused of double standards in their stance on the Ukraine war.
Earlier in the year, Amnesty International published a report highlighting the West’s “double standards” on global human rights.
Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, told Al Jazeera at the time that the occupation of Palestinian territory was a “particularly important one”.
“Without making any comparison between Russia’s aggression and Israel … it is clear the Palestinian people are under a regime of oppression – a regime of occupation and a regime of apartheid,” Callamard told Al Jazeera.
Over the last three days, X users recirculated earlier statements calling out what they called Western hypocrisy, sharing video by the Irish lawmaker Richard Boyd Barrett from March 2022 in which he berated the Irish government’s double standards regarding Ukraine and Palestine:
“You’re happy to use the most strong and robust language to describe the crimes against humanity of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, but you will not use the same strength of language when it comes to describing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.”
Barrett on Sunday again called out what he described as “shocking double standards of Western leaders supporting Ukraine resistance but condemning Palestinian[s].”
Meanwhile, others warned against comparing conflicts.
https://twitter.com/denfordauthor/status/1710993737738768607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710993737738768607%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine
And some cautioned that Hamas and the Palestinians should not be seen as one and the same.
Just to clarify:
Palestine did not mount an attack on Israel. An Iranian proxy militia did. Palestinians are by and large huddled in their homes praying that an Israeli airstrike won't kill them or theirs. Hamas is the culprit here. This isn't a decentralized grassroots thing.
— Romeo Kokriatski (@VagrantJourno) October 9, 2023
Ukrainian footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko, who plays for Arsenal, posted on Instagram, stating he “stands with Israel”.
Zinchenko has been a vocal supporter of his home country in its ongoing defence against Russia, and he participated in a Game4Ukraine charity match in London earlier this year to raise money for Ukraine.
After online backlash, with some questioning an alleged double standard in his support of Israel, the footballer removed the post and switched his social media account to private.
Several people claimed that Zinchenko’s football club, in not responding to his comments, was guilty of hypocrisy after they had distanced themselves from former player Mesut Ozil’s comments in 2019 over alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China.
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